


Still Point

by frangipani



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, PWP, boring married feelings, inappropriate use of the Vong timeline, which is all I have time to write these days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-12 18:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/pseuds/frangipani
Summary: It’s not hard to imagine what could have happened. Luke shifts half over her and sinks his head into her neck, all signs that it’s too soon to parse with discussion.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 20
Kudos: 50





	Still Point

**Author's Note:**

> As always my gratitude to [strangeallure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeallure/pseuds/strangeallure) for her generous eye.

Mara wakes when the mattress dips. She’s a light sleeper even under the best of circumstances and her sleep hasn't been all that great onplanet. At one point, she thought that might change, but then there'd been Ben and it didn’t end up working out that way. She feels every shift as Luke climbs in, hears every faint sound, from the rustle of the sheets to his slow exhale. 

Her mind starts its restless workings. Nothing’s surprising about Luke crawling into bed this late, she thinks, not bothering to open her eyes, feeling him curl around her. A faint note of sea breeze hits her nose as he does. Everything in Mon Calamari smells like the sea to her, including the water from the tap at the hotel the provisional government's put them in despite their protests. After weeks in the _Shadow's_ sterile atmo, she might be more sensitive to it.

A few senators had been set to get in during the night cycle here. Meetings were set to run late. They'd continue to do so until the government's election. 

_If you need me...,_ she’d said, but they’d just gotten back here from a visit to Ben a day ago. Luke knows it takes her a while to put on a socially-appropriate face to all that _How is your son?_, _How old is he now?_, _Oh, that must be hard_. The polite sympathy grates, feels like condescension, as if to be away from her baby was something mildly pitiful, not rending a bloody chunk of her heart. Ben’s absence feels lonely, a new kind of loneliness that has shocked her in its potency, for all she'd thought she'd long plumbed the depths of the feeling.

Mara ends up nodding all the same to the near endless shallow sentiments, forces a wan smile or two, makes up some platitude about necessity, as if she doesn't risk driving herself to distraction daily, thinking up all the ways her son could grow up an orphan. As if battling against that doesn't leave her wrung out and desolate, feeling utterly useless in all spheres.

But if Luke had needed her for the meetings, she’d have known. Bond or no bond he’s not shy about it, especially now that they’ve got the vinegar and molasses routine down pat. These gatherings haven't been like that as of late. 

War is intensifying. They'd known, probably before most, but now that Coruscant has fallen, everyone else does too. It’s why their return date to the Shelter is a sham. A fantasy. They both know that too, though Luke would never go as far as to voice it.

Luke’s body heat seeps into her. Mara tries to settle to go back to sleep, but she aches, Ben's rounded face clear in her memory. Her hand twitches, her mind conjuring the phantom softness of baby skin, the smell of the top of his head. Is Tionne holding him close? Singing him a lullaby? He might not remember them when they come back. 

_If_ they come back.

No. She can't go down that path again, and forces her thoughts back to politics, to what this new slew of neverending meetings might have brought.

It'd been a presentation of something that could turn the tide of the conflict, supposedly, but numerous strategies have been discussed before without results. Luke himself, for all his optimism, hadn't thought it'd been worth both of them being up at an insane hour, a tacit admission of skepticism if there was one. He's treading more cautiously these days. Support for the order isn't what it once was.

How late is it, really?

His hand goes to her hip, her shoulder in a light, darting touch. That and his Force presence draw her attention from her mind’s workings. Through the bond she discerns an inquisitive tinge saturating his presence as his hand rests on her arm. 

Curious, Mara sighs. His hand drifts from her arm, palm open, fingers spread atop her shirt-clothed belly and there it’s clear as day. Other pieces fall into place with that: a perceivable tension in him, his earlier trepidation at the coming meetings, the weighty concern at them.

They'd probably gone badly.

She inhales and rolls to her back, a different squeeze in her chest. It’s not hard to imagine what could have happened. Luke shifts half over her and sinks his head into her neck, all signs that it’s too soon to parse with discussion. 

Whatever the meeting covered was probably as unconvincing as they’d thought, and whoever presented it wasn’t happy to hear it -- the meeting might have degenerated into the usual _What are Jedi good for_ scapegoating, maybe more of that _Jedi should be abolished _ refrain that keeps getting play in some parts. It wouldn’t be the first time. The broadcast media's been having a ball with it.

Luke’s an old hand at sitting and letting beings rail themselves into silence. He’s heard every insult, direct and indirect, more than once over the years. After all that misplaced anger spends itself, he usually moves the discussion elsewhere. But he does vent over grandstanding and myopia, over loopholes and opportunism, over political expediency -- it’s just not for those beings to see. Just as it’s not for them to see the effect of the constant questioning of his motives for points. Even among those who claim to serve the New Republic, there are those that seek to profit from wartime chaos. 

And there are the traitors, hidden away, just waiting for a vulnerable moment to strike.

It is known that Luke Skywalker hates politics. The degree however, would surprise any sentient.

Mara opens her eyes in the dark, brings a hand to his nape, but his own darts out, closing around her wrist, pushing it back to the mattress. 

She’s surprised, but not as much as when he nips at her neck, making her release a surprised sound into the quiet of the room. With it comes a reflexive shift away, usually effective, save for the fact that he drops his weight on her hips, pinning her in place. A jerky thrust follows the movement, a choppy breath against her neck that makes her shiver, her belly tightening. He's already hard, and Mara almost loses her train of thought, what his tension means in the abruptness.

The meetings must have gone _very_ badly.

He releases his hold on her arm, rough fingers trailing down the underside of her forearm in a knowing touch. An unspoken question. She can't make out his expression in the dark or much of anything, her eyes haven't adjusted yet. He remains still, his breathing regulating to evenness as he waits. 

Luke may have heard every insult dozens of times, but this is war again -- the screeds against Jedi come with holos of razed battlefields and burned corpses. Luke, for all the horrors he’s witnessed, has yet to become inured to that. The weight of having to remain at peace for everyone can be crushing. _Is_ crushing. She can tell through the way disappointment mires his Force presence. He’s shuttling more away from the bond for her sake. They'd agreed to keep to the bond’s shallower ends shortly before dropping Ben off months ago. 

Mara had seen the memories of her illness in his face as they discussed it, had a sense of the well of his reluctance. She'd held fast. All his good intentions don't change that he'd be the first to take on the whole galaxy's pain, and end up flaming up like some sort of Giganist sacrifice in the troposphere. She suspects she knows more about his limits than he does.

He’s still waiting, his fingers unmoving at her wrist, head tucked into her neck. His chest rising and falling evenly. The answer could be as simple as pulling her arm away. He’d slide off her if she did, take it as she’s too tired, or too caught up in Ben’s pulsing absence. That can be true. Has been true on occasion. 

Or it could be a sigh and stillness. Acquiescence. Take what you need. Tired but conciliatory. 

But Luke knows that if it’s acquiescence he’s looking for, there are other ways to get it, ways they’re both familiar with by now. He wouldn’t have pinned her down. That seems to be asking for something else -- and taking a risk. 

Even now, she can appreciate that. 

Mara bucks up, quickly, and he shifts his hips up for a more effective pin, one leg between hers. His hand drops to between her sleep pants in a practiced caress, thumb applying just enough pressure as it slides between her legs over her clothing as if there were any doubt of what he needs. But it's more. _Resistance_ is what he's after, she decides. Her hips grind hard into his hand, heat rising up her body, and she yanks him down for a bruising kiss, a clash of teeth, her tongue sweeping into his mouth, gripping hard at his arms. His hips push against her in another stuttery thrust that feels like confirmation, a reminder, and she glides her hands up his naked back, clutches at the broad span of his shoulders, even thinking that maybe she shouldn't; she should be shoving him off. But his weight feels anchoring, and the slide of their bodies invites closeness, even with all this clothing between them.

Luke breaks off, shifts to claw at her pants. Resistance, something to work against, she reminds herself, finding the will to scoot away -- or tries. The next moment she’s flat on her belly, but not sure how it happened. She's sleep addled, or worse, gone soft, should probably slot in the gym tomorrow if her schedule isn't a complete nightmare. Her underwear slides past her hips, bringing her to the here and now. The graze of his fingers precedes the burn of fabric pulled against her skin, dragging down her thighs to her knees, then his fingers, not even all the way in. She's wet enough to fix that with a snap of her hips, clenches down, hearing his ragged inhale. 

Luke’s shifted, curling his arm around her waist from behind, his mouth leaving a sharp kiss at her hip while his fingers withdraw and go questing along her thighs. She squirms away, locks her legs together to invite a rougher touch, his fingers obliging, as they press what will soon be bruises along her inner thighs. The stern dig of them into her skin leaves her breathless, wanting to unspool, to turn over, and melt under him. She could; it’s just not what he needs right now. 

Mara stays in a crouch on the bed, sliding forward until Luke’s free hand trails up her nape and knots itself into her hair, close to her scalp. The yank when he pulls her back, makes a soft cry leave her throat, makes more heat gather low in her belly.

How long has it been since it’s been him? Lately, it’s been _her_ clawing at him, grabbing him by the hair, digging her fingers into his skin in the effort to excise her frustration and hurt. At herself, at him, at the galaxy, and all the millions of things she can't change; writing heartache on his skin through pressure and pleasure until everything stops moving. Only for a second. The briefest second.

Luke’s other hand grasps her hip in a way she knows, pulling her against the hard jut of his cock. She pushes back restlessly, wet enough that her thighs feel damp against each other. He’s yet to take his pants off. If he’d done so, he could have just pulled her back by the hair and been fucking her to senselessness already. 

He makes no move to take off his remaining clothes, even as his mouth drags down her neck. She shudders at the heat of his breath, his open mouth, the slide of his lips, the scrape of teeth at the tender skin behind her ear. She reaches back, tugs hard at the fabric of his sleep pants. If he's waiting, it shouldn't be for her sake. He releases his hold on her hair to bat the hand away, but pulls her back against him by her hips, fingers sinking more bruises onto her skin. It’s a compromise, a poor one given all the clothing between them -- but she still moans at the solid press of his cock against her. The fabric scratches against her skin, and yet, his movements, fevered and urgent; the rare gracelessness of them makes her heart race. Sweat gathers at her temples, at her back under her shirt. She'd take it off, but mounting arousal drives her to push back, focus on the friction between them. The shirt's not a priority.

Getting him closer is. Mara turns, and because of the tenor of this, reaches up to where his shoulder is -- best as she can tell in the dark, latching a hand there and falling back, taking him down with her in a tangle of limbs, a part of her mildly disappointed that she's not taken him entirely by surprise; he's still managed to keep most of his weight off her. In the next second she’s wrapped her legs around his waist and pulls his mouth down to hers for another furious kiss, one even more artless than the last, the taste of copper on her bright on her tongue. She grips at his back, feeling him scrabble to find purchase on the mattress.

Muscle ripples under her palms as he lifts up. She turns her head to sink her teeth into his bicep, arching when his moan goes strangled, when his hand roams down her torso over the shirt, mouth hot against the side of her jaw before it finds hers again. He squeezes along her outer thigh, as his kiss turns deeper, more demanding. Mara imagines the tension in him seeping into her, imagines herself taking it all in before letting it dissipate. He's said that's what it's been like for him. A controlled burn out.

But that's not the whole of what she feels. Mara shoves her hips up, scratching her fingernails down his back, tasting his moan as he thrusts against her. In the next moment though, he’s swatting her hands off and pinning them with his at her sides, his mouth pulling away, to drag across her neck, bite the round of her shoulder hard. She jolts with a cry, arching her hips against him again, legs in a clamping hold as she squirms under his unyielding grip, her shirt bunching between them.

He releases her to pull at her nightshirt; she raises her hands as he yanks it off. The air cools her skin, but that only lasts an instant before the warmth of his palms covers her breasts. He squeezes hard, hands bordering fumbling, the need in his touch stark. 

His palms shift lower to where her hips are raised, her legs still around his waist, and cup her ass, pulling her tighter against his cock. Another helpless thrust makes her rock her hips in counterpoint, her breath catching at the way sensation travels up her body, the memory of him inside her changing over from heat to ache. His low moan, overwrought and needy, echoes between her legs and banishes all thoughts of struggle. Mara bends up, raising a clumsy hand to tug at his pants again. 

Like before he slaps the hand away, his own hand ducking to grope between their bodies, and while she knows he’s seeking resistance, something to fight against, she feels liquid and insensate enough to ease her legs’ clamping hold fractionally. His touch, off rhythm and awkward in this position, has her panting and rolling her hips, moaning her frustration. 

Luke’s own breaths are harsh when he jerks his thumb away, presses it to her mouth. She wraps her lips around it, sucking at the bitter taste of her own arousal, curling her tongue around his thumb, getting it dripping wet in the kind of lewd way he likes, but would be more effective with more lighting. He still trembles when she bites lightly, pulls his hand away and she hears the rustle of him finally ridding himself of his clothes. Has that been enough enticement that he'll pull her head down? Mara dismisses the notion. He doesn't feel like that's what he wants.

Resistance. So Mara dives away. She hasn’t made this difficult at all, she thinks with more than a bit of chagrin. At all. She’d have done better years before, or if she hadn’t been half asleep, but she can at least make one last attempt and rolls off the bed.

Two paces from the bed his arm goes around her waist, two more paces and she’s pressed up against the wall. He nudges her knees apart with his leg and shoves in, immediately falling into a fast, brutal rhythm. 

She cries out and arches back, half surprised. It’s uncomfortable, the right amount in measure to the thick slide of him, her breasts pressed up against the cold of the wall's surface. Her moans thin as she brings up a hand to the wall, fingers clenching on the unyielding plaster. The discomfort seeps out as he continues driving in, the angle isn’t good; she’s not going to come -- but the impact, the stroke of him in her has her caught, a shake building low in her pelvis. Luke wants her like this, it comes to her with certainty, it's just enough, just right. Even in the haze of her budding desperation, she squirms, ruining his rhythm as a provocation.

Luke's hand winds up hard in her hair and he yanks, his other hand gripping her hip, holding her in place to find his pace again. She moans again at the stars in her vision, all of her drawing tight, nerves prickling, arousal making her desperate to come as he slams into her. She shifts a hand between her legs, thinking just a stroke or two would do it despite the bad angle, she’s so wound up, more than she'd known at the beginning -- but Luke lets go of her hair to jerk her wrist behind her back. 

She whines as his movements stop, hips snapping unevenly, a groan lost to the darkness of the room when he comes. He drops his forehead to her shoulder, breaths fast. 

Luke presses a soft kiss there, another, and shifts, withdrawing. Letting go of her wrist, he brushes more kisses across her shoulder. Her frayed nerves tingle even at that, and she squirms, turns around to kiss him with abandon. His arms wrap around her waist, carrying her to the bed as she rakes her fingers through his hair, kissing him with all the leftover ache roiling through her.

Her body is crying out for any touch, any caress to come, and for a while Luke sliding on top of her is what she needs. His kisses are unhurried, the glide of his hands lingering and drawn out, making the most of the simplest touch, the slow drag of his fingers down her arm, the gentle nuzzling at her chin, the base of her throat, and this she's come to know is for him too, a kind of wind down.

Luke shifts, starts nosing along her midriff, hands trailing over her collarbone, her breasts, tracing her ribs, roaming around her outer thighs. Mara knows where this is headed, and she could come the way he aims, with her thighs clenched around his head, her back arching off the bed. It'd take no time at all. It'd be easy. And then when the afterglow fades she could lie in the darkness holding him, being held as the world realigns again outside to its, messy, overcomplicated shape.

She doesn't want that yet. 

Mara wriggles under his touch, the nip at her thigh making her hips leap, another whine lifting out of her. She pulls him up for a kiss, clumsier than before, hips arching under him. She can wait, _wants_ to wait before her mind takes over, and all the hurt and anxiety come crashing back. Only a little longer.

She wraps her arms around him, a kind of locking embrace, curls a hand on his nape, hair damp against her palm. He's been keeping it shorter than he's had at any other point since they'd met. A military cut, she'd teased before war became real. Before Ben. 

Luke stays, his hand by the side of her face, sweeping by his shoulder, kissing her like he could until day break and more. The urgency in her has faded. This moment feels hers, something within her easing up as he kisses her cheeks, her temples, her jaw, his hands stroking up and down her sides, the easy weight of him reassuring, familiar, more real than anything outside. If she faded back into sleep like this it’d be fine. She's learned she can forget like this too.

But Luke sits up, pulling her onto his lap, the sweat-slicked slide of his chest against her back waking her body, almost too quickly. The heated caress of his breath at her neck is familiar in a different way. One of his hands molds itself to the curve of her hip while the other trails up her thigh. Her breathing speeds, but she forces herself to remain slack, linger.

He licks up her neck, just as his hand delves between her legs. Small incoherent noises seep out of her bit by bit as his hand strokes up gently, across her wet thighs, coaxing her hips to work against his hand. Before long he has her writhing on his lap; his touch, knowing and merciless, building her up. It's too quick, this reawakening, soon she’s shaking again, aching with the need to come. 

He thrusts three fingers in, thumb stroking at her clit as she throws her head back and squeezes, heat blooming to a tipping point before he eases off his thumb. Mara both wants the sensation back and doesn't as his lips scatter open-mouthed kisses along her neck. Doesn't want the build when this want is both incomplete and perfect, her body thrumming, senses singularly focused on him, on the tingling in her nerves. He’s all around her, his thighs under hers, his belly and chest at her back, his mouth at her neck, his fingers lazily pumping within her. The pressure builds and builds, undeniably -- and then he slows down, makes a soft soothing sound before pressing a kiss to her pulse as she pants, regrouping. Her body feels pulsating and heavy, and yet she still tries not to undulate against the wet presence of his fingers. Tries to wait in spite of herself for the next stroke. Tries to defer the crest of pleasure, to linger even more, but soon can't.

It's not even the stroke of his thumb; he's read enough of her body to go for a more subtle, unhurried touch. She's caught by his other hand stroking her side, splaying itself over her rib cage where it stops, not palming her breast, only resting there, where he must feel the throb of her heart. That and his inarticulate murmurs by her neck make her feel full in a different way, one that makes it hard to swallow, and she can let her climax take her. She can.

When his next thrust comes, she gives herself to the expectation, the anticipation. There’s _incredible_ just beyond, if she waits, and Luke knows. He knows. Her especially. Her hands clench on his thighs. And she'll let him. He’s never failed her. Not in this, nor any -- 

His touch returns with renewed zeal, making her arch and groan frenzied encouragement. Pleasure finally snaps like a thunderclap, every inch of her tightening, releasing in a violent shiver. She rides the steady movement of his fingers with garbled moans torn low from her throat, her skin slippery with sweat where it slides against his. 

After the feeling recedes, she goes limp against him, panting. Luke nuzzles her shoulder, sweeping a hand down her arm again, stroking her there for a moment before wrapping his arms around her, his cheek now at her nape where her hair is stuck against her skin with sweat. Little by little the world does come back, she aches, but it's not as sharp. She knows why she's made the choices she has. Someday she'll explain it to Ben. It'll be just a story then, not much more than a painful memory.

Luke gently pulls her back on the bed, and settles his head by her waist. Mara senses from his Force presence that his own concern and disappointment at whatever happened with the senators hasn't faded. She runs her hand through his hair. She feels his sense less heavy, at least. Any other time he could have gone and batted at remotes for a while, but chose this with her instead. A risk. The knowledge lodges in her, warmth that makes her scoot down to kiss the top of his head. She can't smell that sea note anymore, only him.

Luke shifts suddenly, pulling his arm away. He’s grabbing at something under him. 

“Oh,” he mumbles. “Your underwear.”

Mara chuckles and takes it, awkwardly shoves the garment onto the bedside table. She doesn’t particularly feel like going to the ‘fresher; she'll shower tomorrow. He does and she rolls to her side, closes her eyes as she hears the faucet come on. 

She must have dozed off because the next thing she knows Luke’s sighing next to her as he brings his arm around her, pulling lightly. Mara rolls in his direction, slinging an arm around him. She's sweaty and this position will probably be too hot and uncomfortable before long, but it’s fitting for now. She strokes along his spine and Luke makes a soft sound as he burrows even closer.

Should she ask for details? she wonders drowsily.

No. It can wait until he tells her tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> *meta hat* To show my work: I would shove this somewhere in _Destiny's Way_ although the narrative might not give space to this sort of interlude -- temporally or tonally. Not that this stops my sacred mission to shoehorn porn to canon. Push come to shove, it can either be at the beginning with Rodan's questioning or somewhere middle-ish when the [Alpha Red](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Alpha_Red) situation comes up. In fact, I was thinking of Alpha Red much more as I wrote this, a no-win situation if there is any. Luke's job, as my bud strangeallure points out, sucks.


End file.
